


subtle difference

by weekend_conspiracy_theorist



Category: Blue Beetle (Comics), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Didn't Know They Were Dating, F/M, M/M, Paco Brenda and La Dama don't show up but they all get name dropped because I love them, Sharing a Bed, Wally West is Alive, nightwing and oracle also get name dropped as a couple, six years down the line
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-30 22:12:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6443896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weekend_conspiracy_theorist/pseuds/weekend_conspiracy_theorist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bart and Milagro get along better than Jaime and Milagro do, Barry is a bit too nosy for Jaime's taste, and late night confessions and accidental cuddling go a long way towards shifting platonic I love you's into romantic ones.</p>
            </blockquote>





	subtle difference

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dragdragdragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragdragdragon/gifts).



> Gifted to Jamie because her name is spelled really similarly to Jaime, she loves Young Justice, and she was cheering me on as I wrote this today :D
> 
> Anyway, so this is, ostensibly, in the Young Justice universe, but I tagged Blue Beetle too because I have shamelessly adopted the Reyes family and friend dynamic from Jaime's pre-52 run. I also name dropped Babs as Oracle instead of Batgirl without even thinking about it, but since this is six years or so down the line that's not necessarily NOT YJ canon?
> 
> Wally is also alive, because fuck that. I do mention his "reappearance" and elude to it being somewhat of a recent thing (although not too recent), but it's not particularly relevant to the story (beyond explaining why Artemis and Wally's relationship is only where it is, what would have been essentially eleven years since they got together) and doesn't get mentioned again.
> 
> Finally, I tried to get that rushed, out of breath feel that I think Bart's thoughts and words would often have, so there are some run-ons throughout his POV sections. So if you notice them, don't worry; they're there on purpose :D I also re-wrote the speedster-talk sections down in the End Notes, if you don't want to try and puzzle through them.
> 
> Enjoy!

Naturally, Jaime is Bart's favorite Reyes. _Naturally_. There's just something undeniably charismatic about Jaime, with his hair and his face and his big heart and yatta yatta yatta, and they've been best friends practically since Bart crashed down in the past, roommates for nearly a year—anyway. The point is that Jaime is Bart's favorite Reyes.

 

That in no way means he is not fond of the rest of them.

 

"Milagroooooooooooooooooo!" He crows, catches her in midair when she flings herself at him with a cackle, spindly arms catching tight about his neck. (Jaime rolls his eyes, but there's that special little Milagro Grin™ tugging at the corners of his mouth, so Bart _knows_ he isn't really annoyed by her antics.) "Hey, wow, you're almost the size of an actual human these days, what happened to the tiny little squirt I knew and loved?"

 

"I ate her," Milagro says promptly, because she gets him. She gives her head a little jerk, swinging her hair back away from her face, and wraps her legs around his waist. ("Disconnect the Milagro from the Bart" is one of Jaime's most hated games to play, and therefore one of Milagro and Bart's absolute favorites in the entire world.)

 

"Come home more often and her growth spurts won't surprise you," Mrs. Reyes admonishes, from where she's tugged Jaime down into a tight hug, and he and Bart exchange guilty glances.

 

Sure, Bart's a speedster, and Jaime can fly, but they rarely visit the Reyeses or the extended Flashfam beyond their actual school breaks—between homework and saving the world, they're a little busy. Mama Bianca does in fact get that and is super supportive of Jaime's super heroics, but it doesn't stop her from guilt tripping them every time they actually do come visit.

 

 _Totally_ not crash.

 

"How's school going Milagro?" Bart asks, a little too loudly, a little too quickly, and zips over to the couch, flopping onto his back with just enough care to make sure he doesn't bang any of her limbs on anything. (Mrs. Reyes snorts, wise to his subject changing ways, and Bart can practically hear Jaime roll his eyes again.)

 

"Some cabrόn was picking on me, so Brenda showed me how to judo flip him into a desk. I got written up but it was totally worth it for the look on his face," she boasts, laying her cheek flat on his chest and wriggling a little bit to find a comfortable position as he throws one leg over the back of the couch.

 

Mr. Reyes sighs from his chair on the other side of the room. "The language I blame on the television," he says, as Jaime moves to lean against the back of the couch, his forearm brushing Bart's calf, "but the physical violence I think is _your_ influence." He points at Jaime, dark eyes serious but lips struggling not to smile, and Bart claps a hand over his mouth as Jaime squawks indignantly. "You superheroes and your punch-first mentality—"

 

"Jaime's more a fan of the whole 'laser canon first' approach!" Bart pipes in, miming a tube over one of his forearms, and Mr. Reyes gestures to him with one hand.

 

"Even worse!"

 

Jaime smacks at Bart's leg, scowling. "I do not—I always try to talk first! But the supervillains don't always wanna be talked _to_ , do they, ese?" Bart shrugs, glancing over at Mr. Reyes like 'why does he think I'm on his side?' as Jaime flounders for a moment. "And then, you know. Then I use the laser canon."

 

"To be fair to Jaime," Mrs. Reyes says—

 

"You're the only one in this room I love," Jaime whispers.

 

"Traitor," Milagro mutters.

 

"—I'm pretty sure Brenda set a violent precedent for Milagro long before the scarab attached itself to Jaime's spine." She spreads her hands, a twinkle of amusement in her eyes, and Mr. Reyes tilts his head in concession.

 

"She scares me," Bart informs them, picking Milagro's hair out of his mouth, and the Reyeses chorus in vague agreement. Brenda- one of Jaime's closest friends from El Paso- has a fiery temper, a lifetime of martial arts training from a local studio, and an aunt who's a major crime lord.

 

Bart is 90% certain Batman wanted to recruit her for the team and only refrained because La Dama threatened to extend her enterprise to Gotham.

 

Jaime reaches down, tugging slightly at Milagro's bony elbow. "Hey, hermanita. You know you didn't actually give _me_ a hug when we came in; are you ever going to—"

 

"Make me," she challenges, and Bart wraps an arm around her shoulders, smirking up at Jaime.

 

"We have a special bond, hermano, you wouldn't understand. Why would I even come here except for Milagro snuggles?" Bart pauses, amends, "And your mom's empanadas. Or, like, anything else your mom cooks. Mrs. Reyes, you are an incredible chef, have I told you that lately? Also, I'm starving, woah, can't believe it took me so long to notice—"

 

And then Bart's in the kitchen, peering into their fridge, one arm hooked around Milagro's waist to keep her from falling—though as soon as he had started talking about food, her limbs had tightened around him in preparation. The fridge is crammed full of food, with one entire shelf devoted to Tupperware with a post-it "For Bart" stuck on the edge. "I love this household," he sighs, grabbing the biggest container he can see and zipping back to the couch. (This time sitting upright, as indigestion is sooooo not worth the comfort.) "Just let me know how much I—"

 

"How many times do we have to tell you that if you're staying under our roof, you don't have to pay us for the food we feed you?" Mr. Reyes cuts in, his eye roll as audible as Jaime's. (Must be genetic.)

 

"F'din' a shpeedshter ishn't egzactly—" Jaime catches Bart's hand, stopping him from shoveling more rice into his mouth, and raises an eloquent eyebrow. Bart swallows heavily, and then continues. "Feeding me is way more expensive than feeding your average houseguest."

 

"You are our average houseguest," Milagro tells him, becoming the third Reyes to roll their eyes at him in one day. She also lets go of him and slips off to his right, since he keeps bumping her with his arm while trying to eat around her bony fifteen year old form. "You're our only houseguest other than family, and sometimes Paco or Brenda."

 

"And the occasional other hero who ends up crashing in the guest bedroom." Jaime circles the couch to drop in between Bart and Milagro, throwing an arm around his sister's shoulders and tugging her into his side. He mutters something to her that Bart can't quite catch, that Milagro Grin™ on his face again, and slips his other arm along the back of the couch, parallel to Bart's shoulders but not quite touching. Milagro curls into Jaime's side, shoving her arm between him and the back of the couch.

 

"All of whom eat incredible amounts of food, even if not as much as you, so we're used to it," Mrs. Reyes concludes, while Jaime's distracted. She smiles warmly at Bart and shakes her head when he opens his mouth to try again, so he gives up trying to argue.

 

(He'll only lose, as he has every other time he's spent the night here, and then end up leaving them as much money as he can scrounge up before sprinting as fast as he can to the other side of the country. He's pretty sure they donate the cash to the local food banks instead of keeping it, but at least he's trying.)

 

"Fangks," he tells her instead, mouth full again, and Jaime sighs as the rest of his family laughs.

 

***

 

"HeyWallmanwhat'supIhaven'tseenyouinageshaveyoupoppedthequestiontoArtyet?"

 

"Wellwearen'tyouandJaimesowemoveatsomethingotherthana _snail'space_ —"

 

"OhmygodWallyforthelastfuckingtimeJaimeandIaren'tdatingwe'rejustbestfriendsandroommatesandwaitdidyoujustsay—"

 

"BenicetoyourhowevermanytimesremovedcousinWally—"

 

"Noseriouslywaitdidheactuallyproposeohmygodthat'ssocrash—"

 

"Ididn'tevensayanythingexceptwhatliterallyallofushavebeenthinkingImeanforfuck'ssakeBarrytheyalternatevisitingeachother'sfamilies—"

 

Jaime sighs, rubbing his temple, and gives up on the thought of saying hello to Barry or Wally for a long while. Their last few visits he's been able to at least get in a "Hey, how are you?" before the speedsters get started, but Wally and Bart are finally falling back into old habits now that Wally's reappearance has lost its nostalgic veneer. Neither he nor Khaji Da has caught a single word since "Wallman," though he's tentatively sure his own name has been mentioned.

 

Iris shoots him a sympathetic glance as Bart waves his hands in the air faster than a hummingbird's wings, his voice getting higher in pitch the deeper Wally smirks in response, and waves him over to join her, Artemis, and the kids. "How are your parents and Milagro?" she asks, projecting her voice over the buzzing coming from the kitchen.

 

"High school is agreeing with Milagro," he tells her, laughing slightly, as he drops into the loveseat that he and Bart always end up sharing—the couch is reserved for Iris, Barry and the twins, and Wally and Artemis have staked a permanent claim to the two recliners. "She got written up for judo flipping a bully, and she's very proud of herself. I think my parents are a bit proud of her, too, although they're trying to find the line between 'don't resort to your fists, Milagro, it isn't effective' and 'yes, we know your brother is a superhero.'"

 

Artemis snickers, holding her fist out for him to bump. "Pass it along to Milagro," she adds, winking, and Jaime almost doesn't notice the ring because he's too busy laughing.

 

 _Almost_.

 

"Ah, mi amiga, don't tell me you didn't bother to call us when you got engaged?" he demands, catching her wrist before she can retract it fully.

 

Artemis flutters her fingers obligingly, letting the ring sparkle as he studies it, and beams over at him. "He only proposed last night; we figured we'd just wait to tell you guys in person."

 

"I got a phone call anyway," Iris brags, one hand running lightly over Dawn's hair and the other settled on Don's shoulder. (Both the twins are fast asleep, their heads pillowed on either one of their mother's thighs—Jaime's sure they were running up a storm earlier in the day, but they always seem to conk out for a few hours in the early afternoon.) "I think that means I'm their favorite."

 

Artemis rolls her eyes, but she doesn't quite deny it. "We also called Jade and Roy," she tells Jaime, squeezing his hand tightly for a moment before withdrawing her own. "And Wally insisted on Skype-ing Nightwing."

 

Bart zips up out of nowhere and throws himself onto the loveseat, sending it skidding back an inch or so and causing Khaji Da to grumble unhappily—though at this point it's far too used to Bart to be much more than annoyed. He throws his legs over the armrest- and Jaime's arm- and wiggles his eyebrows at Artemis. "Oh, I'm sure he _did_ insist on _Skype-ing Dick_ —"

 

"Don't be gross," Jaime tells him, tugging his arm out from under his legs and resettling it on top of them.

 

"Especially don't be gross by implying I'm banging Nightwing on the side," Wally says, dropping into the other recliner. (He and Artemis reach for each other automatically, fingers twining in the space between their chairs.) "Oracle might hear you, and she could and would kick my ass for making a move on her man."

 

Bart turns his face towards the far corner of the room and blows a kiss at an imaginary (or so Jaime hopes) camera. "Sorry, Babs."

 

Jaime half-expects, for a split second, to feel Bart's phone buzz against his thigh, Oracle having texted him "It's fine, but don't do it again", but the moment passes without anything but a ripple of laughter around the room. He relaxes back into the loveseat, Bart's weight on his thighs comfortingly familiar, and Barry emerges from the kitchen, tossing Wally and Bart each a family size bag of chips before settling on the couch—the ease of long practice keeping him from disturbing the twins as he does.

 

"So," he begins, eyes focused directly on Jaime as he slowly opens his own bag of Doritos. "Decided on where you're going for med school yet?"

 

Jaime chokes on the Chicken Whizzie Bart had just shoved into his mouth. "Even my mother didn't lead with that one," he says, weakly, after Bart has pounded unhelpfully on his back and Khaji Da has stopped reciting Jaime's still-very-long list of potential schools.

 

"We're all curious," Iris tells him, glancing side-eyed at Barry. "This one is just tactless."

 

"I vote Harvard," Artemis tells him cheerily. "Staying on the East Coast would probably be easiest, even with zeta tubes."

 

"Oh, but Stanford," Iris cuts in. "Stanford was my dream school for the longest time."

 

"Johns Hopkins," Wally adds, with all the glittery enthusiasm of a guy who clicks on the "Science" tab first when he goes to a news site.

 

"I have to get accepted first," Jaime tells them, a hint of desperation in his voice, but it's too late; they've all begun arguing over each other, including the scarab in his head—which is very set, for reasons somewhat unclear to Jaime, on UPenn. All of them, that is, except for Bart, who is uncharacteristically silent.

 

Jaime prods him lightly, eyebrow rising in concern (Khaji Da dismisses Bart's vital signs as all being well-within his normal range and returns to making its case for UPenn), and Bart shrugs, making a "What?" face at him. Yeah, well, he knows you too well for that, ese.

 

"What do you think, Bart?" Jaime asks, loud enough to catch Artemis's attention, at least, and her sudden silence spreads around the room until everyone's watching Bart expectantly.

 

"Stanford would be totally crash, hermano. Think about the beaches in California!" Bart says, wiggling his eyebrows along with that infectious laugh of his, and Jaime lets him get away with the charade.

 

(For now.)

 

***

 

Ugh. _Bed_.

 

Bart throws himself down over top of the sheets, fully dressed, too lazy to change even with super speed. They only stayed with each of their families for a few days, but it still feels like far too long since he's crashed- heh, crashed- in his own room, with his own stuff on the shelves and the smell of his own detergent on his pillow.

 

This apartment is the closest thing he's ever had to a home, really, which, wow, morbid thought, but it's _true_. He loved living with the Garricks, and he loved the time he spent in Happy Harbor and in Blüdhaven, but this. Here. It's _his_.

 

(And Jaime's.)

 

Bart fumbles to drag his shirt off without moving from his prostrate position, finally managing to tug it up and over his head and then chuck it in the vague direction of the laundry pile he didn't bother to wash before they left on their long weekend.

 

(Jaime always does his laundry before they visit his parents, so he doesn't have to look his father in the face and lie about keeping up with the chores around the apartment.)

 

Bart toes off his shoes, listens to them patter to the floor- no clunking, clunking would mean heavy footwear and heavy footwear is a speedster's least favorite thing in the world besides an "Out of Order" sign on a soft serve ice cream machine- and sighs heavily into his sheets.

 

"I know you're there," he calls, voice completely muffled, and hears Jaime shift on the threshold to his room. "Join me in vegetation," he adds, gesturing to the space next to him on the bed.

 

Jaime doesn't move.

 

Bart pats the bed enticingly.

 

Jaime blows out a long breath. "Yeah, just for a few minutes, ese." There's the rustle of Jaime's pant legs brushing as he moves, the soft thump of his shoes, and then he's stretching across the bed next to Bart, groaning quietly. "How thick is this mattress topper?"

 

"Four inches; isn't it heaven?" Bart musters the energy to turn his head to the side, cheek pressing to the pillow as he studies Jaime around the locks of his own hair that have flopped haphazardedly over his face. Jaime's stretched out on his back, eyes closed, looking the same combination of exhausted and relieved that Bart feels.

 

"Heaven," Jaime echoes, yawning.

 

"You come over for a reason?" Bart asks softly, stifling his own yawn against his pillow. Jaime's brow twitches in that way that it does when Khaji Da is talking to him, and he lifts one hand to prod a finger lightly against Bart's side.

 

"What do you really think I should do for med school?"

 

"'zit matter?" Bart slurs, letting his own eyes fall shut. "You gotta do what _you_ think's best, hermano."

 

"Just wondering what you think, yeah?" Jaime awkwardly twists his arm to pat at Bart's shoulder, rather than prod him again. "I _care_ what you think."

 

"I think it doesn't really matter since I can zeta or run wherever you go," Bart mumbles, too sleepy to think too hard about whether or not to answer honestly. "Don't even have to stop being roommates if we don't wanna."

 

"Yeah, that…" Jaime trails off. "I was thinking that, too. I don't want to stop seeing you every day."

 

"Crash. M'neither." Bart lifts a hand to pat at Jaime's shoulder, too. "Go t'sleep, Jaime."

 

"Gotta… gotta go to my room." Jaime doesn't move. "Any second now."

 

"'ma furnace at night," Bart mumbles. "Should go."

 

"Yeah."

 

Jaime is still there when Bart finally drifts off to sleep, and he's still there when Bart wakes up, too.

 

Their legs are tangled up in sheets that one or the other of them must have unsuccessfully tried to pull up during the night, Bart's leg tossed over Jaime's thighs and his arm wrapped tightly around Jaime's waist. Jaime has one arm thrown out to the side- letting Bart snug in against his side, cheek against Jaime's shoulder- and his other hand is closed loosely around the elbow of the arm Bart's hugging him with.

 

He's still snoring, and when Bart cranes his neck he can see Jaime's beat up sneakers peeking out from under the mess of sheets tangled around their lower halves.

 

"Hey, Jaime." Bart extracts his arm from around Jaime, prods at his chest as he tries to scoot away as far as the tangled sheets will let him. "Wake up, hermano, and go to your own bed. You're stealing my heat and getting my sheets dirty."

 

Jaime responds by rolling over half on top of Bart and snoring loudly in his ear.

 

(Bart wonders what Khaji Da thinks of all this.)

 

***

 

It's been two days, and Bart and Jaime haven't talked about it.

 

It shouldn't have been awkward, waking up tangled up in Bart's bed- waking up tangled up in _Bart_ \- given how often Bart throws himself on top of Jaime anyway, and it hadn't been, not really. He'd woken up slowly, mumbling "Ay díos mio, I'm so sorry, Bart, I didn't mean to fall asleep," as he realized what had happened, and they'd both laughed sleepily as he struggled to disentangle himself and then wandered back to his room for a last few hours of sleep.

 

But something has changed, something to do with late night confessions and waking up curled around each other, something they aren't talking about. And it isn't—

 

Madre de díos, it isn't like their relationship has changed at all; they just aren't looking at each other the same way anymore.

 

Jaime has known for a long time, somewhere in the back of his mind, that if Bart asked him on a date he would say yes, but now he can't stop noticing how often they're in each others' personal space, noticing how his mouth goes a little dry when Bart immediately sheds his shirt upon walking into the apartment—"It's the metabolism, Jaime; I'm hot _literally all the time_. Plus, like, clothes suck, I'm sure we can all agree about that."—and noticing how Bart seems to be noticing the same things.

 

It feels as if maybe there's been something other than friendship between them for a long time, and neither of them noticed.

 

"Look," Bart finally says, somewhere around the time when Jaime has his notes and textbooks spread across the floor of the entire living room yet has managed to leave Bart the perfect path to both the couch and the kitchen. "I've been feeling really conflicted about this because I simultaneously didn't want _Wally_ to be right and desperately wanted Wally to be _right_ , but I'matleastlikeninetyninepercentsurethatI'minlovewithyou."

 

Jaime realizes Bart is talking to him rather than talking in general somewhere around "Wally to be _right_ ", and looks up just in time to see Bart clearing a neat but speedy path through Jaime's work. "Sorry, Bart, I missed pretty much that whole last—"

 

And then Bart is kissing him.

 

It's soft and chaste and when he blinks, Bart's suddenly on the other side of the room, fumbling with the locks on their front door. "Look, so, yeah, it's crash if you don't feel the same way and I definitely don't want you to move out but I get it if that's the decision you feel you need to make and—"

 

He's talking just barely slow enough for Jaime to distinctly make out his words, and it's probably that tight focus that's keeping him from being able to unlock the door.

 

"Hey, woah, ese!" The Blue Beetle armor snaps down around Jaime and then he's across the room himself, slamming the door back closed as Bart finally gets it open. It sinks back into him as Bart's wide eyes meet his, and he raises his other arm, caging Bart in place. (Not really. He could always phase through the door, or even through Jaime, and be gone faster than Jaime could even start to formulate a thought, but he doesn't. He stays, practically vibrating with nerves.)

 

"Give a non-speedster some time to actually respond before you assume you're being shot down," Jaime says, watches the nervous, hopeful grin spread across Bart's lips.

 

"Okay." Bart's fingers twitch like he wants to wring his hands or reach out and touch Jaime, but he holds himself back. He sucks in a deep breath, the words coming out as a challenge when he says, "So respond."

 

"I have no idea what you said during that last part," Jaime admits. "So I don't exactly know what I'm responding _to_ , but I'm going to guess and say I love—no, I'm in love with you, too, Bart Allen."

 

It's a subtle difference from the platonic expressions they've exchanged in the past, but it's an important one.

 

"Yeah?" Bart grins, and he doesn't stop his hands from reaching out this time, pulling Jaime closer.

 

"Yeah," Jaime breathes, letting his eyes slide shut as he leans in towards Bart's lips.

 

" _Crash._ "

**Author's Note:**

> Translations from Speedster to Regular Human:
> 
> "Hey, Wallman, what's up; I haven't seen you in ages. Have you popped the question to Art yet?"
> 
> "Well, we aren't you and Jaime, so we move at something other than a snail's pace—"
> 
> "Oh my god, Wally, for the last fucking time Jaime and I aren't dating! We're just best friends and roommates and--wait did you just say—"
> 
> "Be nice to your however-many-times removed cousin, Wally—"
> 
> "No, seriously, wait, did he actually propose? Oh my god, that's so crash—"
> 
> "I didn't even say anything except what literally all of us have been thinking! I mean for fuck's sake, Barry, they alternate visiting each other's families—"
> 
> and, of course, "I'm at least like ninety-nine percent sure that I'm in love with you."


End file.
